Glass memory

Aerith doesn't flinch when I confront him.

We're gathered near the crumbling mouth of an old relay chamber. The floor is cracked concrete, webbed with moss. Sira watches from the side. Venu leans against the rusted support beam. Maika hangs back, arms crossed. Ajay sits near her like a shadow he doesn't know how to leave.

"I heard you," I say, voice steady. "Talking to that recorder. Calling me compliant."

Aerith breathes out through his nose. "It wasn't a conversation. It was a log. A transmission dump for relay caches in case I—"

"Died?" Venu offers.

Aerith nods. "Exactly."

"And the rest of us?" I press. "What were we? Data points? Emotional leverage?"

He crouches, unclips the device from his belt, and scrolls. "Here," he says, projecting the log. "You can watch everything."

We do.

Lines of code. Voice tags. His updates. Nothing hostile. But nothing warm, either. Just... distant. Like we're variables, not people.

"I was trained to track, log, report. This is how I survived," he says. "Not to manipulate you — to understand what mattered and make sure it didn't disappear again."

Ajay frowns. "You could've told us."

"I thought it would scare you," Aerith says. "Make you think I was hiding something worse."

I take a breath. "And you're not?"

He meets my eyes. "I'm not."

Then, slowly, he selects the logs.

And deletes them. One by one. No backup. No hesitation.

The tension in the air shifts — not gone, but... quieter.

"What now?" Sira asks.

"We follow the data line," Aerith says, tapping the device. "Every node stores shards of information. Memory logs, location data, sometimes imagery. If we find the right fragments, we can reconstruct the bottle's last known location."

Maika steps forward. "Or we could just search buildings. Or your old house."

Silence.

Aerith doesn't even look at her. "Buildings have been stripped clean or buried. We're wasting time above."

Maika bristles. "You're assuming."

"I'm calculating," he replies. "We need precision, not nostalgia."

Kaia starts to speak — but I beat her to it.

"Let's just keep moving," she says instead, turning away.

Everyone follows.

Except Maika.

She stands frozen, blinking. Like she didn't expect to be dismissed so easily.

Even by me.

Ajay hesitates, then walks back and hands her the map copy.

She doesn't take it.

"You okay?" he asks.

Maika laughs once. Sharp. "I'm perfect. Apparently irrelevant, but perfect."

He doesn't leave. Just sits next to her, quiet.

She doesn't say thank you.

We move on. The tunnel narrows again. The lights dim. Everyone's walking, but no one's together.

I keep thinking about the word he used: compliant.

And I wonder if deleting the logs changed anything — or if we're all just pretending not to see the fracture that's already too deep to fix.

Two hours pass in near-silence before Maika rejoins the group. She doesn't walk beside anyone. Her steps are loud. Intentional. I catch her glancing at Aerith. He never once glances back.

We reach a platform node with weak signal — Aerith says we'll rest here.

I try to organize supplies, but the energy's off. Venu is quieter than usual. Sira tries to strike conversation with him, but it lands flat. Maika busies herself with cleaning her knife. Ajay doesn't leave her side.

Later, as I sit near the flickering campfire, Aerith settles across from me.

"I didn't mean to humiliate her," he says.

I don't answer.

"She suggested something dangerous. Searching ruins above could expose us. I dismissed it because I thought she knew better."

"You didn't have to look at her like that," I murmur. "Like she was just noise."

Aerith doesn't deny it. He just stares into the flame.

"I didn't think you'd care."

And somehow, that hurts worse.

I'm not sure when I became the one carrying the weight of all their feelings. I just know that now, even Aerith is watching me to see who I'll defend.

And I don't know the answer.

To be continued...